A Whirlwind Day in Hamburg

We manged to see some interesting attractions in Hamburg, despite being in the city for less than two days. It was cold and windy most of the time, but we did a lot indoors and made the most of it. 

We took an ICE train from Munich to Hamburg. It was a 6 hour ride, but the time passed quickly. Train travel is definitely much more comfortable than air travel. 

The next morning we headed to the Hamburg Volkspark Stadium. 

Nate found several munzees as we walked to the stadium

Stadium with several small soccer fields in front

Hamburg team mascot

The stadium with UV lights on the far end to help grow the grass

From the stadium we took the train to the harbor 

"Skate or die" as proclaimed on a harbor wall

There's an old tunnel under the Elbe River to get to the other side. There's an elevator or you can take the stairs like us. 

Cars have their own special elevator as well

Cars enter the elevator and tunnel from here

View down the tunnel

We kept a close eye for leaks in the tunnel, but mainly saw artwork like this

Panorama of the Hamburg skyline from across the Elbe River

An classic photo of the city that would look better on a nicer day

The biggest attraction of the day was Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg, a place consisting of rooms and rooms of miniature trains, landscapes, villages, and people. It was amazingly detailed and expansive; it took us over 3 hours to work our way through all the exhibits. Every 20 minutes or so the overhead lights would dim to simulating nighttime. Lights in the exhibits turned on to allow us to see villages and night and peer into tiny, detailed rooms in the buildings. A brochure listed a dozen things to try to find, kind of like a "Where's Waldo?" or "I-Spy" game, which also entertained us. 

Miniature stadium with thousands of tiny fan figurines and a show playing on the stage

In a roped off area of the building workers were constructing a new exhibit based on scenes around Italy 

The Swiss Alps landscape complete with trains, hot air balloon, villages, and people

Dad, Nate, and Pam look like giants compared to the miniatures

The Alpen village at night

A "working" Swiss chocolate factory that would wrap and dispense real chocolate!
Obviously this was by far my favorite part.

Red Bull Flugtag event miniature

A castle at night

An entertaining scene of a bank robbery in action with the thieves tunneling toward the safe where police are waiting

A monk lowering himself via rope to his cliff-side monastery

Superman! 

Another cityscape at night

Just a small bit of what is needed to run all the trains and lights
P.S. Did you notice the little figurines?

Miniature airport at night

An airplane taking off and heading toward the movable panel in the wall ahead

The Millennium Falcon swooping in for a not-so-graceful-but-entertaining landing

The Millennium Falcon taxiing to its gate

Even the US Space Shuttle made an appearance, complete with a firetruck receiving party. The designers were very thorough. 

Ski Resort in the Alps

Jurassic Park

The control center

Miniature miniature golf. Very meta!

Volksparkstadion - The Hamburg football stadium we visited earlier that same day

UFO landing

Downtown hamburg

Hamburg Central Station

This building opened up to show even the inside details of the building

One of the rooms had some Minions partying

Brandon's goal was to find this little penguin family that was in the brochure. He succeeded.

A working drive-in movie theater showing an actual Pixar short

Area 51

These pictures depict just a few of the scenes at Miniatur Wunderland, so you can probably understand how we spent so much time there. Nate and Brandon lasted the longest, and they could have probably explored longer had the rest of the group's eyes not glazed over. As it turns out, it is exhausting looking at all the little details for hours on end. Afterwards the group set out to explore a non-miniature downtown before grabbing a bite to eat. But due to tired legs, hungry stomachs, and a bit of directional confusion, the only place we made it to before dinner was the Hamburg Rathaus.

The Hamburg Rathaus - Town Hall

Inside the Rathaus

Tim had looked up a bar in Hamburg called Schankwirt Schaft that had 12 craft beer taps available. Their selection did not disappoint. We tried at least half of their beers either through tasters, samplers, or a full pour. Our favorite was an IPL by Kehrwieder called Prototype. They also had some carnitas and vegetarian tacos on the menu. WIN!

Our beers

Best tacos we've had in Europe thus far

The one thing our restaurant lacked was dessert. This was especially sad since it was Nate's birthday, and we wanted to make sure we celebrated it adequately. We tried to get a recommendation from our waiter but he warned us that a lot of places were closing soon. Sure enough, nothing was open. We continue to be surprised with how early everything closes in certain parts of Europe. We eventually parted ways with Pam and the parents and continued our pursuit of dessert closer to our place. We finally found an open grocery store where we were able to purchase cake and ice cream, took it back to our place, and had a tasty ending to our night.

Happy Birthday Nate!